A POWERFUL explosion ripped through a key port in southern Iran on Saturday, killing four people and injuring more than 500, state media said, with the cause of the blast not immediately clear.
The customs office at the port said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.
State media reported a “massive explosion” at Shahid Rajaee, the country’s largest commercial port, located in Hormozgan province on Iran’s southern coast.
Citing local emergency services, state television reported that “500 people have been injured, dozens of whom have been transferred to nearby medical centres,” revising earlier tolls.
“The explosion occurred in a part of the Shahid Rajaee port dock, and we are extinguishing the fire,” state TV quoted Esmaeil Malekizadeh, a regional port official, as saying.
Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is the most advanced container port in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency.
It is located 23 kilometres west of Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, and north of the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of world’s oil output passes.
Footage on state TV showed thick columns of black smoke billowing from the port area where many containers are located.
As emergency services dispatched rapid response teams to the port, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the blast and assess the extent of the damage, according to the ISNA news agency.
Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of Hormozgan province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area.”
“We are currently evacuating and transporting the injured to nearby medical centres,” he said.
The explosion was so powerful that it could be felt and heard some 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported, with residents saying they could feel the ground shake even at a distance from the port.
“The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.
The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that “the explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines.”
It added that “Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption”.
The rare explosion comes several months after one of Iran’s deadliest work accidents in years.
A coal mine blast in September caused by a gas leak killed more than 50 people in Tabas, in Iran’s east, prompting authorities to announce public mourning.